PURPOSE: To familiarize students with climate - what climate is, what makes it up, how it affects us, and how it differs within our region and between our neighborhood and others.
CONNECTION TO THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY STANDARDS: No. 1: To know and understand how to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective. By looking at maps on the internet and in various other places (such as the news forecast), students will practice obtaining and processing information from them. Students will also ‘create’ their own class climate map, with each student being assigned to represent a city. No. 4: To know and understand the physical and human characteristics of places. The physical characteristics in terms of climate of a place will be examined i ndividually by students and then combined in order to compare locally to regionally and nationally. The students will also begin a daily weather log to track the local changes. No. 7: To know and understand the physical processes that shape the patterns of the earth’s surface. The effect of weather and climate on the area will be examined, as will different climates in terms of precipitation and temperature.
OBJECTIVES: Students will demonstrate their ability: 1. To compare weather conditions in other areas to their own, and also the changing conditions of their own area. 2. To map the conditions of an area in comparison to other areas. 3. To use resources such as the Internet to find information on climate. 4. To understand the effect of climate on the life and inhabitants of a region. 5. To learn to use the Internet for weather information.
OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION: This unit will be based around the discovery of climate through local daily observation and through observation and information gleaning through the Internet and other available sources. The students will ‘mark’ their progress as the map of the country becomes more colorful and cluttered with colored squares that represent different topics of study for the day. The students will also begin a daily weather log of local conditions to be kept up with through the end of the year.
PROCEDURES: PERIOD 1 : INTRODUCTION TO CLIMATE Sponge activity / Opening- Allow the class a short trip outside to experience the day’s weather. Before they go out, ask them to take a pencil and paper to record words to describe what the weather is like outside. Guided discussion / Activities - When they come back in, have them call out their words while you make a list in the categories of temperature, wind, and precipitation, plus any others as the need arises. (Put the words in these categories, but do not title them.) Have the students figure out how you have classified the words. Begin a daily weather log. Ask specific
questions about the weather. Have each student record the temperature outside, the condition of the wind, and the state of precipitation. Let them know that this will be a daily activity to go in their journal. Begin a discussion on climate - how it has to do with weather. (Climate is the average weather conditions of a region.) Hand out five different colored one inch squares to each student. Have them label the squares with rain, snow, wind, clouds, and temperature. (For example, everyone labels the blue square as rain, the orange square as temperature, etc.) Instruct the students to save their colored squares until the day that the class discusses that topic. Next, assign each student a city in the United States and help them find it on an enlarged map in your classroom. Mark each city with a thumbtack on the map, or with a colored circle around it. Explain to the students that they will be given an opportunity to find out information on the climate of their city on the Internet, beginning the next class period, given an address plus all the assistance necessary. Feedback / Closure - Going back to the intro activity, ask students if the words they used to describe the weather conditions outside would apply to most days in this area, and if they would apply to many other areas at the present time. Challenge them to watch the weather on the news tonight (if they have a TV) or listen to the report on the radio if they can catch it and compare other conditions in other areas, or the changing conditions in our area.
PERIOD 2: TEMPERATURE, INTERNET Sponge/ Intro- Ask the students about the forecast for our area and in comparison to the nation and even the world if any of the students have (or if you have) the information. Activity- Have the computers set up on the internet and on the intellicast home page, where the students will find the places to go to get climate and weather information on their cities. USA Weather: http://www.intellicast.com/weather/usa/ Discuss temperature, beginning with the words that were used last period when the students thought of words to describe the weather. Continue on to discuss what the students think of first when they think of Hawaii or Alaska (most likely, if you ask them to relate it to climate, it will relate to the temperature). Temperature is measured with thermometers, just like we measured the temperature for today outside. Feedback / Closure - Let the students explore the website and obtain the relevant information for their city or region. Ask them to put key terms or figures on their small squares of construction paper in order that they can remember important information for when we discuss the map on the last day, but to also put more detailed information on a sheet that they will keep for their own information and reference. Ask them to concentrate on temperature for today, but if they have time, they can look up information for the other topics on their colored squares for their city if they have time. (Explain to them that time will be given every day for research on their city.)
PERIOD 3: PRECIPITATION Sponge/ Intro - Play the “Rain Game”- in a large room or on the concrete slab outside, have assorted colors of construction paper taped around, one for each student. Let each student stand on a sheet of construction paper with their arms outstretched. Tell them they are going to pretend they are a small cloud drop being blown about by the wind. When you say go, the students move from their piece of paper to another of the same color, keeping their arms outstretched. Each time one student touches another, they link hands to become a larger cloud drop. If students from two different colors collide, they go to the nearest color of paper and claim it as their new color. When a group has five people in it, they have formed a whole raindrop and they should go to the puddle area and sit down. (The puddle area is marked off out of the bounds of the cloud area.) Discussion - Use the game to bring students into a discussion on rain. It forms from tiny droplets (smaller than raindrops) that make up clouds. When enough of those tiny droplets come together, they fall as a raindrop. Ask: What other kinds of precipitation are there? (Precipitation means falling down, and the precipitation of water means water falling in some form.) Snow, sleet, hail-water in solid form, rain- water in liquid form. Ask students what kinds of precipitation has occurred recently in our area. Is there any major precipitation in the news? This can lead to a discussion on the water cycle as the teacher draws a simple representation of the water cycle on the board, or on a sheet of butcher paper on the wall (use the textbook as a guide, or refer to the attachment). Compare the water cycle to an endless chain of buckets where water is taken continually taken up and then emptied again. Activity- Allow students time to research their assigned city in terms of annual precipitation, or if that is not available, the precipitation forecast. While some students work, if there are not enough computers, or if something else goes wrong, have the students illustrate a diagram of the water cycle, looking at an example. Students can work individually or in pairs on this. At the end of class, or throughout the class, have the students come up to the map and tack their precipitation information square near their city.
PERIOD 4: CLOUDS Sponge/ Intro - Have labeled pictures of clouds for the class to look at. Take the pictures outside and let the students look at the clouds (if there are any) and ask them to categorize the clouds they see. Activity- Discuss with the class how clouds are messengers of weather. The different types of clouds are good predictors of what kind of weather there will be. Before all of the fancy weather forecasting computers and equipment, weathermen had to rely a lot more on what the sky looked like, what temperature and pressure it was outside, etc. The computers make the forecasts a lot more reliable. If there is time, the students might enjoy seeing the cloud catalog on the Internet using the classroom computer and LCD projector. There are many different clouds pictured there with nice photographs.
PERIOD 5: WIND AND READING OUR CLIMATE MAP MATERIALS: 5 different colors of construction paper, plus enough for the rain game thumbtacks markers map of the United States to enlarge on opaque projector? classroom computer with Internet capability and an LCD projector computer lab with Internet capability outside thermometer something to mark off the boundaries for the rain game, and a place for a puddle area
APPENDIX: (Not available on this site) Climate with George the Geographer (hyperstudio stack) Water cycle diagram Weather legends chart
EXTENSIONS: Compare and interpret maps and photographs to explain how physical processes affect the features of the earth’s surface. obtained a good amount of information on their city, have them write about what they might like or dislike about living in that city. Try to find pictures and information other than just on climate to broaden their base of knowledge.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: USA Weather: http://www.intellicast.com/weather/usa/ This is the Internet site that the class will be using to get all sorts of weather condition information during class on their cities. It has many different maps available.
The Weather Unit: http://faldo.atmos.uiuc.edu/w_unit/weather.html This is a site for teachers. It has weather related units for many different subject areas. I got the climate map of the United States idea (with the little squares) from here, plus some other things.
Ludlum, David M. The Weather Factor. Houghton Mifflin, 1984. How weather influences history, answers to many ‘trivial’ questions that might be interesting to children, consequences of weather.
Milgrom, Harry. Understanding Weather. The Macmillan Company, 1970. This book is written on a child’s level and would be good to have as a reference book for children to look at.
